Lack of focus

[scottg]

   We don't need no stinking focus!!

 I have always been amazed and kind of felt sorry for people with collecting focus. 

 So, You randomly decide one day you are collecting only 1920's widgets.
 OK, that's nice
 So then, 2 days later, you come across an --1820's-- widget, in screaming mint condition, for 2 bucks?
  You are walking away??

 Picking a single focus is fine as long as you don't put the blinders on that interfere with you knowing more.

 I collect good stuff. That's all.  I want to know what is good compared to what is crap, in every subject I can absorb. As much as I can absorb.
Then I can separate the wheat from the chaff at a glance. 
 
 Avoiding another common, bad condition item of any kind, (even if its free), is what I crave.
 I don't have any more room in my little house for dreck.
   Spotting a diamond in the dirt, is what I live for!
 
 The only way I know how to get there is to study.  I study something every single day.
  I will never know even a particle of "it all".
 
  But I do know what I know because I worked at it.
    yours Scott 

[Neals]

Well said Scott!!!!

[Lump]

Geez, reading the posts in this thread...is almost like looking at my tool-collecting hobby in a magic mirror! You guys' experiences are just like my own!

I could never afford the really great tools I wanted when I was a young mechanic-trainee, so I was forced to open accts on Mac and Snap-On trucks, and to charge my card limit on Cman tools at Sears. But this was not near enough for kid wanting to be a full-time mechanic, so for years I bought all the top quality USED tools I could afford at flea mkts, etc. Then I became a sheet metal worker with stronger paycheck, but needed totally different tools. In 1978 my family was wiped out in a car wreck, leaving my dad's auto-mechanic and sheet metal tool collection to me, along my grandfather's and great-grandfather's woodworking tools. (No WONDER I have trouble "focusing" on one type or brand of tools!) 

33 years ago, I got a desk job, and since then I have generally used my tools at home for remodeling chores, and maintenance on family cars, mowers, tractors, and collector cars.

But in recent years I can finally afford to spend a little money on tools, and now enjoy expanding my inventory in my tool box(es). And since I love to go to flea mkts, yard sales, swap meets, estate sales, etc, I often find great deals on top quality used USA or Euro-made tools. And since my life experiences have taught me to appreciate quality tools and equipment, usually I cannot resist them!

I got started buying more aggressively after joining 3 online tool forums, and I have made some pretty big hauls in the past 3 years.







Yet I realized that I cannot keep them all. I have neither the room, or the money. So decided to sell many of the tools I find, to help pay for the tools I want to keep for my own use. Soon I began sortying them by brand, etc. See photo of my computer room in the basement (below):


Since the above photo was taken, the bins have been filled to overflowing, separated, more bins added, and now those are overflowing too. Yet I have trouble selling most of the tools, because I still have trouble focusing on which brands/styles of tools to keep!!!

[Wrenchmensch]

I held on to a Diamond Calk & Horseshoe Co. 8-inch crescent-style wrench I found in a snowbank while crossing on a Mohawk River bridge. Forty years later, I came across a copy of Smithsonian Magazine, and read an article about wrench collecting. I had bought a couple of heavy duty Williams S-wrenches at a flea market by that time, but wasn't turned on by them. Elmo Reinhardt seemed to have found more interesting wrenches than I had. So then I bought Donald Snyder's First 1000 Wrenches, and read it cover to cover before turning out the light at night. I also started to buy Martin Donnelly's Antique Tools catalogs. Those experiences turned me on to the wide variations in wrenches which might be found.  That has been my focus ever since. I don't live in the Missouri Valley, so I don't find too many Bradley's Wonder cutouts.  I do have fun, though, and that's what counts!

[RedVise]

  I do have fun, though, and that's what counts!

Boys, Right There, that's the best answer to the focus question !

Brian L.

[Fatboy]

I held on to a Diamond Calk & Horseshoe Co. 8-inch crescent-style wrench I found in a snowbank while crossing on a Mohawk River bridge. Forty years later, I came across a copy of Smithsonian Magazine, and read an article about wrench collecting. I had bought a couple of heavy duty Williams S-wrenches at a flea market by that time, but wasn't turned on by them. Elmo Reinhardt seemed to have found more interesting wrenches than I had. So then I bought Donald Snyder's First 1000 Wrenches, and read it cover to cover before turning out the light at night. I also started to buy Martin Donnelly's Antique Tools catalogs. Those experiences turned me on to the wide variations in wrenches which might be found.  That has been my focus ever since. I don't live in the Missouri Valley, so I don't find too many Bradley's Wonder cutouts.  I do have fun, though, and that's what counts!

I ran across the same magazine years ago! Still have it somewhere!

[Nolatoolguy]

I have no focous at all in my collection. I got a little for every catagory. Woodworking, blacksmith, etc. Most of my tools are just flea and garge sale finds so no super rare valuable tools but they still mean something to me.

There are the tools I love then tools I like. If its something I think I like and a good deal I wont pass it up no matter what. Worse comes to worse if I have it for a while and get tired of it or think I can make a profit if its a tool that doesnt intrest me that much I will sell it and let someone else enjoy it who can enjoy it more then me.

It is hard to balance the budget between user and collecter tools thoe. Not to meantion my savings for a truck soon.

[john k]

My dad bought old tools to use around the farm, so they were always there in my face.   Then after his passing, I started picking up the dreck from all the farm sales we went to, crescent type wrenches, machinery tools, and woodworking tools.   I already had a good start on my mechanics set, and he bought me a used tool box full for my 16th birthday from a pawn shop, and I still have many of those.   Finally I started doing some simple woodworking, having an old house that is always needing something.   Saw that Smithsonian magazine with the tool collections and decided I may as well gather in what I could.   I figured on the bottom end were old mechanics tools, at the time nobody was collecting them.    At the same time I got turned on to blacksmithing, soon realized there was the start of necessary tools already in the barn.   A forge with blower, he bought on a farm sale in the 40s.  Plus a Peter Wright anvil that came from within the family.   I started polishing off the rust or grease from things and discovered names like JH WIlliams, Bonney, Millers Falls, Fairmont and Billings.   Hey I got another hobby!   Already stop at antique shops, but now I could put to use some of the tools I found there.   At a garage sale I'm the one digging thru the buckets and boxes around the corner of the building, smiling to myself the whole time.  What direction does my collecting take, well, first its got to be fairly old, and now I look for the better examples, and if I wait, can find stuff in the box still.   Most of all its got to interest me, moving parts, gizmos, and my hand is in the air waving my bidder number!

[Lump]

I'm with YOU, John K. Your experiences mirror my own.

[amertrac]

when we were farming the wife and i started decorating the house with old farm hand tools inside and horse drawn equipment outside kinda went with our outlook in life.
the theory carried over when we moved up here in the mountains .so collecting continued and continued
till  now. If we had to move. I would have to hire someone.  bob w.

 

[Wrenchmensch]

Bob W.:

The accumulation of non-essentials is a characteristic of those of us who grew up in the post-War Age of Plenty.  We call it various more-or-less positive-sounding names like:

Preserving the Past
Museum
Collecting
Hobby
Finding

I have several tons of these non-essentials. How about you all?

[scottg]

I have several tons of these non-essentials. How about you all?

 I don't get to have tons.
I have a small house and small sheds, and generally a small life.
Just the way it worked out for me.
  I can't afford to drag home dross anymore.  I have to be exceedingly selective.
 When I get something new, something old usually has to go (no more room).
  So it better be outstanding!   

 This is ok with me.  I'd rather have a little bit of the best than a whole lot of mediocre.
    yours Scott

[1930]

I have several tons of these non-essentials. How about you all?

 I don't get to have tons.
I have a small house and small sheds, and generally a small life.
Just the way it worked out for me.
  I can't afford to drag home dross anymore.  I have to be exceedingly selective.
 When I get something new, something old usually has to go (no more room).
  So it better be outstanding!   

 This is ok with me.  I'd rather have a little bit of the best than a whole lot of mediocre.
    yours Scott

Thats also my situation but on my end usually if I have deemed it collectible than its not going to leave unless I have decided I am done collecting them and over them but since I am so selective at this point on what I collect and the stuff I collect can be challenging to find I havent run across having to get rid of much yet

[barcalo]

I pick up a tool ,hold it and think ,how many hands touched it before me.How many children have been fed while this tool has been operated by a head of household.I think about the first buyer, the years it spent in a box in a barn,the mileage in a vehicle and why it ended up in my collection . But most of all I think where it will end up after me and how long will it last.
 I was born in 1933 and some of the tools I have were 100 years old when I was born and they are in good condition now. Could tools be true infinity?     old man ramble    bob w.

Best post I have ever read on a tool forum.

[Papaw]

Best post I have ever read on a tool forum.

Welcome to Tool Talk!  You'll find lots of thoughts like that here.